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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28165380">may death never stop you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/molotovhappyhour/pseuds/molotovhappyhour'>molotovhappyhour</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Romance, love and let it be loud, trauma but let them heal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:54:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,330</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28165380</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/molotovhappyhour/pseuds/molotovhappyhour</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>(Tea steam condensed on the window, and a thin line of moisture had dragged itself down on a misshapen path, led by a bead of icy water. Through the haze, there were shapes of patrons, shapes of dishware, shapes of shopowners—a figure haloed in light and another swallowed by the shadows of a back room, barely glimpsed in the brief clarity given by the condensation, fogging up again as the steam again sighed against the window.</p><p>“<i>did you hear?</i>” the window carried the conversation through its panes, a murmur against wood and glass. The news had traveled slowly here to the Land of Snow, if only because the village was remote enough to miss, and yet even this was delayed by those standards. The snow had known for eons, it seemed—because there were flakes of it born from the Valley of the End. “<i>the uchiha clan is done for good. last one kicked it not too long ago.</i>”</p><p>The window’s tone had changed, delivering a different timbre, a different patron rumbling deep from the back of their throat. “<i>jackass,</i>” the window relayed like the shifting of the earth, so low was it spoken. “<i>that news is three fucking years old. you’re late.</i>”)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>78</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Sasunaru fics to live for, THE naruto fic list</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>may death never stop you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hi everybody, it's thinking about narusasu hours.</p><p>thanks caitlin for proofreading this.</p><p>listen to "fake your death" by my chemical romance, streaming now.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>(The windows of the shop had been foggy at the edges, snow sitting on the windowsill with picturesque practice, an almost-constant winter giving it the time it needed to perfect its <em>exact</em> placement on this <em>exact</em> windowsill. Until recently, the shop over which the snow lived had sat empty, because that’s what shops did when there was no one to fill them. But snow had never minded, because the building occupied the same space regardless of whether or not it was occupied.</p><p>A door shut and the snow had rustled before settling back into place, the same place it always settles into. The sound of a bell followed a patron in. The snow had ignored it.</p><p>The windows hummed with the noise from inside, not disturbing the snow whatsoever, because the snow is older than the people inside the building, older still than the building itself, living a thousand lives and dying a thousand deaths year after year, after year—</p><p>A teacup had been placed next to the window to cool. On the outside, the snow had begun to ease itself into a softer shape, going liquid against the steam. A quiet death, like most of them, despite the noise that made the glass tremble when someone laughed particularly loud. Occasionally, the snow can feel whispers through the glass, small vibrations of sound that carry nowhere except into solid things, melting some of the flakes against the windowsill with the force of it, passing along rumors to its kin.</p><p>Tea steam condensed on the window, and a thin line of moisture had dragged itself down on a misshapen path, led by a bead of icy water. Through the haze, there were shapes of patrons, shapes of dishware, shapes of shopowners—a figure haloed in light and another swallowed by the shadows of a back room, barely glimpsed in the brief clarity given by the condensation, fogging up again as the steam again sighed against the window.</p><p>“<em>did you hear?</em>” the window carried the conversation through its panes, a murmur against wood and glass. The news had traveled slowly here to the Land of Snow, if only because the village was remote enough to miss, and yet even <em>this</em> was delayed by those standards. The snow had known for eons, it seemed—because there were flakes of it born from the Valley of the End. “<em>the uchiha clan is done for good. last one kicked it not too long ago.</em>”</p><p>The window’s tone had changed, delivering a different timbre, a different patron rumbling deep from the back of their throat. “<em>jackass</em>,” the window relayed like the shifting of the earth, so low was it spoken. “<em>that news is three fucking years old. you’re late.</em>”</p><p>A click of a tongue, sharp against the glass. The snow shifted, startled, before relaxing again. It had waited with bated breath, footsteps and the rumble of snowmobiles falling into the background in the middle of nowhere, swallowed by gossip and the clatter of ceramic plates. An embarrassed cough had fired off, making the window creak. “<em>about fucking time, though, if you ask me, right? three years ago or now, it just means one less thing to start a fucking war over. it’s been so quiet since</em>.”</p><p>Another bead of condensation, another glimpse into the tea shop.</p><p>A smile, mostly teeth.</p><p>Blue eyes, glittering like light refracted off of snow melt.</p><p>“<em>can i get you anything else?</em>” the owner had shown a dimple before the fog hid him from sight, obscuring a grin so wide it could’ve swallowed the sun. Whiskered scars folded into the laugh lines beside his mouth.</p><p>The window had shivered against the melting snow, straining to listen. </p><p>“<em>no thank you, uzuha-san</em>,” the patrons answered, almost in unison. The weight of it had caused the snow to shift again. “<em>delicious, though, as always</em>.” A little bit out of sync, but genuine, for all the brief-yet-eternal time the shop had been there it its current state, warm, and full, and creaky with people. The snow outside could feel it in the grain of the wood underneath it.</p><p>“<em>glad to hear it</em>,” Naruto had replied, beatific and shameless and, reportedly, dead. “<em>always good to have you</em>.”</p><p>The shadow in the back of the tea shop had rolled its eyes, a ghost from this distance and inaudible.</p><p>The snow had listened anyway, living and dying with the thrill of it.)</p><p>“You look like an old man, <em>Uzuha-san</em>,” Sasuke tells him, their fake name rolling off his tongue with the mocking sort of softness that carries the echo of a patron while also doing the warm-and-fuzzy thing in Naruto’s stomach that patron voices do <em>not</em> do. All the while, of course, looking like a gloomy but very hot barista, apron and everything, like they hadn’t decided to open up a <em>traditional tea shop</em>, instead of something like a <em>ramen shop</em>. Both of the things are warm, you know? Both of the things are a dime a dozen in a climate like this! Either one would’ve sold like hotcakes, or—or a hotcakes shop? Or—</p><p>“Well, we can’t all look young and hip like you, <em>Uzuha-san</em>,” he mimics back, shifting dirty plates from his good forearm to the one that doesn't feel much, its joints more-or-less responsive to changes in chakra pressure, but hardly precise. It does what it needs to, in a pinch, and, actually, helps him <em>pinch</em> things, so a solid choice for a person that has to grab plates and teacups all day, much less a person that has to grab plates and teacups all day while in very standard and very fashionable hakama, unlike <em>some</em> people, whose idea it was in the first place.</p><p>Sasuke rolls his eyes, closing the practically ancient register with his hip, carrying the till to the back to the shop, using his shoulder to part the curtain, as his arm is occupied with other business, and the empty sleeve at his side wouldn’t be much different anyway. As the curtain shuts, Naruto thinks he can see a little dusting of pink on the tips of Sasuke’s ears and a glow partway down his neck; it’s the sure sign of embarrassment, the sign that Naruto had returned the warm-and-fuzzy right back, or whatever Sasuke calls it in his own head when he thinks about these things. </p><p>It’s true, to some degree, Naruto tells himself as he lifts the curtain aside with his left wrist, balancing dishware atop the aluminum plating just above his right wrist joint—Sasuke really does look at <em>least</em> a couple years younger surrounded by brewing supplies and an immaculately kept snack-kitchen. Naruto can’t tell if it’s the well-worn clothes, or the beautifully tied apron, or the work-flat hair, or the lines by his mouth that speak a little less of tension and a little more of relief. It could be anything, a sight or a sound or a feeling, but it’s there somewhere.</p><p>Naruto always finds the words for things later than he means to, so this time probably isn’t any different in that respect.</p><p>But there is a part of him that acknowledges that Sasuke was right about one thing—he’d be really easy to recognize in hakama, considering how long he’d worn one, and the look he’s working now is something <em>just</em> different enough that he looks everything and nothing like he used to, all at once. The most disarming thing about him now is how comfortable he looks about seventy-five percent of the time. </p><p>“What're you thinking?” Sasuke says, taking Naruto’s <em>expertly designed</em> and not-at-all flawed stack of plates and teacups and dipping bowls. They rattle only slightly when Sasuke puts the dishes in the sink to rinse them, a co-opted drying rack poised under the faucet to hold the dishes in place before they wind up in the dishwasher to his right. “I can smell the smoke from here.”</p><p>“<em>Ha ha</em>.” Naruto rotates his right wrist joint, the socket squealing a little between his flesh thumb and forefinger as he loosens the chakra pressure there. The joint pops enough for him to flex his fingers in a semblance of what they used to do. “I was thinking about dinner.” A lie, because something sappy might make Sasuke drop a plate, or might make him cry, or might make his face tighten and obscure the softness there. “I can cook tonight.” The truth, because there are still countless things that they have to catch up on for all the time they spent running toward or hiding from glimpses and reflections and echoes of one another—namely the fact that Naruto <em>can</em>, by a now-less-than-limited margin, cook.</p><p>“Oh yeah?” Sasuke’s eyebrow does that <em>thing</em> it’s so good at, a perfect arch above perfect eyelashes above depthless eyes. There’s a smile on his face that is most evident in the hints of lines that’ll be crow’s feet sometime in the future, though there are pieces of it hidden in other places—the corners of his mouth, the tilt of his head, the lift of his shoulder. Even so, there’s something curling slowly around his pupils that doesn’t match; a conversation that could be waiting to happen. </p><p>Naruto lets it wait, his palm ready to grab for it when it comes.</p><p>“Oh yeah,” he replies. “I don’t know if you know this, but I can <em>make</em> my own ramen noodles, which, by the way, is why we should’ve opened a <em>ramen shop</em>.”</p><p>That eye roll again, caught in the same motion that Sasuke uses to shut the dishwasher with one foot and untie his apron with a tug of his thumb. Sasuke’s eyes are so clear and <em>exactly</em> like Naruto remembers them that it’s easy to forget that he’d had the Rinnegan for less than a day, instead taking back a left eye that could barely make out <em>shapes</em>, much less channel chakra, all in the interest of opening a tea shop as far away from the Land of Fire as possible. </p><p>It sounds <em>almost</em> like a laugh when Sasuke says, “would’ve been <em>super</em> subtle. Three months after you die, a random ramen shop opens up in the <em>middle of nowhere</em>, almost as far away from the Fire Nation as you can get. That doesn’t have the name <em>Uzumaki Naruto </em>written on it anywhere.”</p><p>“That’s Uzuha Naruto to <em>you</em>.” The electricity on his tongue pops against his teeth, a sensation that’s contagious in its own right, just like the pink on Sasuke’s ears is contagious, just like the twist of his mouth to hide a wider smile is contagious. </p><p><em>wow</em>, Naruto can hear himself say on a sigh lost to time, his voice much higher and the crack of it very <em>youthful</em> in its fervor, <em>he’s so fucking pretty</em>. The phantom sensation of a smack to the back of the head, a request to repeat himself, a named-and-unnamed itch at the curve of his shoulders. </p><p>“Dinner it is,” Sasuke says with a voice like snowfall with icepack sitting underneath, tossing his apron across his unarmed shoulder as he heads for the stairs where their home is. “What do you need help with?”</p><p>The sun burns at the back of Naruto’s throat when he smiles</p><p>(The rocky earth had been beginning its slow freeze that autumn, beaten by steady, barely-liquid sheets of rain. The shower whispered among itself, relearning the slow shifts in pavement and sediment, memorizing the shape of rainboots that would be snowboots before long. The boots’ soles tickled the dirt-specked puddles that were swallowing information and news and chitchat along their greedy edges, collecting things to hide under the pine needles, drowning in water that was too cold to let them rot.</p><p>The squall had been able to feel a relative, tucked inside the shape of a tea shop, tucked further still into the shape of arms and legs and pointed teeth as it sat in a booth, a wave given life in another form. The clouds above the village itself shuddered to shake itself free of the last of its rain before the snow started, straining itself to catch the murmurs in trembling palms.</p><p>Birch leaves, stuck to the shop’s floor, passed information to the water droplets, curling themselves around conversations that were familiar and different, the kind that other trees had heard much farther south. Migrating birds had brought their perceptions and conceptions and spins on things, twittering to themselves among seeds before fluttering away again, leaving behind only their gaps in knowledge and the urge to know more, to pass along to seasons forward.</p><p>The rain had hissed to and between itself as one birch leaf drip-drip-dripped rainwater into a negligible puddle forming beside a well-loved rainboot. Its edges, browning in the pondering death at the end of a fleeting autumn, trembled out words that would’ve been otherwise lost to the cold, the wet, and what, in a warmer climate, would be the sticky grip of mud.</p><p>“<em>what are you doing here?</em>” the shadow had said, for once outside the confines of the payment counter and the kitchen, and the birch leaves and the rainwater had felt a memory, somewhere, seen by them-and-others, passed along on wind streams and river paths—the shadow in a different light, shoulders held differently, its mouth a harder line.</p><p>“<em>is that any way to talk to a paying customer?</em>” The person-shaped water system flashed pointed teeth in a smile, the birch leaves peeling away from the floor to land in a warm palm. The rain had found itself caught in Naruto’s palm print, tucked away in his lifeline—somehow shorter and longer than expected.</p><p>Red hair had snorted, glasses slipping down the thin bridge of a nose. The shadow’s eyes had glittered, even though one of them was unable to see. “<em>you haven’t paid me yet.</em>”</p><p>Naurto had coughed a hidden sound of humor against the birch leaves in his hands before he’d tossed them back into the rain, the cold, the almost winter. The birch leaves shared their sights with the puddles in which they landed.</p><p>The rain itself, themself, had reached a cacophony against the glass. <em>listening</em>, it said. <em>listening</em>.</p><p>The eddy-that-wasn’t, the person-that-was, had cocked his head, a slightly crooked tooth poking out through his lips. The water in the grooves of the roof, the glass, the steps, the porch could feel his attention, his awareness, and his voice when he replied, “<em>do i need to speak to your manager—sorry, what was your name again?</em>”</p><p>Glasses again pushed up a nose, sharp words getting sharper against the woman’s teeth. Naruto, eyebrows arched with something like mischief, from what the rain could see between itself and the foggy chill. </p><p>“<em>none of your business,</em>” the shadow said, and the autumn shower hissed with the sound of laughter.)</p><p>Naruto can see the way that Sasuke is looking at the flour in his hair, on his face, on his <em>eyelashes</em>, all evidence of noodles made beautifully, by the way, if messily. There’s a combination of things on his face—no flour, or anything like that, despite being on clean-up duty, that bastard—but, like, <em>feelings</em>. They’re smoothed along the underside of his eyebrows and pulling the skin tight, a little bit, by his eyes. The feelings are probably <em>not</em> about the flour, not with the way that his lips thin a little bit like that, but the words are still hiding somewhere under his tongue—under Naruto’s or Sasuke’s own, well, he isn’t entirely sure.  </p><p>“You’re getting good at this,” Sasuke says, which is <em>not</em> what Naruto had expected at all. It doesn’t quite match with the thoughtful tilt of his eyebrows or anything in his posture, but he says it anyway. <em>Unreal</em>. “The old man at Ichiraku would be jealous.”</p><p>The hum of something, simmering in Sasuke’s tone—but it doesn’t taste like what Naruto thinks it should taste like. It’s both familiar-and-unfamiliar, the-same-and-different. It’s <em>absolutely</em> not the feeling that Naruto thinks it is, because he would be able to <em>hear</em> it, the way it takes long and heavy steps across a lake that’s barely frozen, the ice cracking beneath it. It’s always been able to rattle windows and shake the earth around them.</p><p>Whatever this is, it isn’t <em>that</em>.</p><p>(It had been a feeling that all the seasons had remembered in equal detail, so sharp had the sound of it been. The sunlight remembered it as a singular feeling, held tightly by the shadow with both hands. But the seasons knew it had been pulled taut between the both of them.)</p><p>“I’d had to learn <em>something</em>,” Naruto tells him, and he can feel the flour in his palm scraping against his chin when he drops it there. “Otherwise, I’d’ve had to start freeloading, which would demolish my ‘vagrant with a heart of gold’ reputation.” </p><p>A smile that touches Sasuke’s mouth like the springtime. “I don’t think that was your reputation.”</p><p>“It’s my version of events, so <em>I</em> get to decide what my reputation was.” Naruto grins when Sasuke wrinkles his nose in a silent scoff. He blinks and can see the afterimage of it on the back of his eyelids. “But I guess you got me. Teuchi wouldn’t’ve ever called me a vagrant. He was too nice.”</p><p>And oh <em>shit</em>, there’s a laugh, clinging to the surface of the table like dew to a blade of grass. Quiet, singular, and gone in a heartbeat, even still. “Nobody would’ve called you a vagrant, because nobody fucking talks like that.” </p><p>Sasuke shifts his body in his seat, pushing it away from the table, stacking dishes as he goes. There’s a structure there that Naruto has memorized, the way that all the weight has to be stacked to be carried tucked against his chest, but it’s still impressive to see in action. Maybe that’s another thing that keeps him out of sight or behind the register—to watch him move is to catch a glimpse of who he had been, a ripple across a reflection from years before.</p><p>Before Naruto can catch himself, he’s half out of his seat, his flesh-and-blood fingertips resting atop Sasuke’s own.</p><p>Sasuke blinks. Naruto blinks in kind.</p><p>“Uh,” Naruto says, like the buffoon that he’s been called for his <em>entire life</em>. “Do you need help?”</p><p>This blink is much slower, reminiscent of the cat that he catches Sasuke feeding in the summer. His eyelashes go on for a hundred <em>thousand</em> years, which Naruto always seems to forget and remember at least as many times a day. They kiss his cheeks when he blinks like that, a lingering touch against his skin, and it’s <em>wild</em>. Something burns in the center of Naruto’s chest, something currently indefinable but familiar, like he’s been holding his breath for too long. </p><p>“Um,” Sasuke replies, but doesn’t move his hand away. His fingertips are freezing, like always. “No? You cooked.”</p><p>If Naruto leaves his hand where it is, Sasuke’s fingers will eventually warm up underneath all the calluses and scar tissue, leftover from probably several-too-many fights. His skin will soften <em>infinitesimally</em>, not enough to matter, but Naruto will notice anyway, like always.</p><p>Sasuke blinks for the third time, a frown starting to draw itself along the line of his lips. “Are you okay?”</p><p>Naruto lets go. </p><p>Sasuke watches him with that enigmatic expression on his face. There are so many different versions of himself that Naruto can see echoing in the arch of his eyebrow, the downward tilt of his lips. It’s a face that could mean anything—literally <em>anything</em>, from ‘I am literally about to leave you behind forever without telling you’ to ‘I cannot believe you feel any kind of affection for me and might cry.’ It’s uninterpretable, hooked into the lining of his guts and tugging, tightening all of his muscles in a panic response.</p><p>It isn’t until Sasuke turns around to make his way to their <em>residential</em> dishwasher (fancy) that’s probably older than the both of them (<em>less</em> fancy), that Naruto swallows whatever kind of melancholic bile had been rising in his throat. He coughs against the weight of it, the thickness of it, pushing his chair away from the table with one foot. The rattle of it against the floorboards breaks the almost-silence and background faucet noise. When Naruto walks across the kitchen to stand at Sasuke’s right side, his legs don’t shake.</p><p>There’s a pause that lingers between them, Sasuke’s attention apparently focused entirely on the dishes in his hand, transferred between the sink and the dishwasher with a little bit <em>too much</em> care. The skin under his fingernails has gone white with the force of his grip on relatively delicate ceramic bowls, the muscles of his wrists straining with the frustration of it all.</p><p>As the dishwasher squeals itself closed and there’s no more dishware to occupy Sasuke’s focus, he does that thing—that thing where he bumps their elbows, his right to Naruto’s left; that thing where he loops an arm around Naruto’s waist and presses their hips together; that thing that’s a lot like a conversation, dropped into Naruto’s open palm.</p><p>“Sasuke,” Naruto says, scattering his tone around their shamelessly tiny kitchen like dandelion seeds, light, airy, and a stone’s throw away from relieved-and-hysterical laughter, “are you <em>worried</em> about me?” </p><p>A scoff, and Sasuke shifts his arm from around Naruto’s torso to drape around his shoulders. “How could I <em>not</em> be? You keep staring at me like <em>I’m</em> the one with flour all over my face, or like you’re waiting for me to break your nose or something.” The skin tightens at the corners of his eyes as he narrows them. “But when I <em>ask</em>, all you do is look like I smacked you.”</p><p>Their position is a little awkward, what with Sasuke’s arm where it is, and their hips where they are, and the fact that, yes, Naruto still definitely does have flour on his face and probably in his hair. Regardless, Sasuke’s pouting a little (probably shouldn’t say that out loud), and Naruto reminds himself once again that his eyelashes go on forever. It gets more awkward still when Naruto lifts his arm to loop across Sasuke’s shoulders, but that doesn’t matter either.</p><p>“Sasuke,” Naruto says, with all the seriousness in the world.</p><p>“Naruto,” Sasuke replies, with significantly less seriousness, but he speaks softly enough that it presses embers against the soles of Naruto’s feet.</p><p>“Can I kiss you?” A question that isn’t anything like the ones that are on Naruto’s mind, like the way that Sasuke’s been looking at him lately, or the way he can’t possibly tell what’s on Sasuke’s mind most of the time—but it’s close enough, kinda.</p><p>Sasuke huffs a breath between his teeth and tilts his head, turning it <em>just </em>enough so that their noses brush. He looks <em>radiant</em> in that singularly intimidating way, you know, like—like sunlight swimming around a void, or something. “Is that supposed to be a response to my statement?”</p><p>“Yeah, a little,” Naruto tells him, and he can feel Sasuke’s breath against his lips. It’s warm, warmer than the tip of his nose by a longshot. “It’s supposed to lead into my next question about whether or not you wanna shower with me.”</p><p>Sasuke’s eyes are searching his face contemplatively. Naruto watches them draw lines around the shape of Naruto’s eyebrows, down the bridge of his nose, across the curve of his mouth, around the jut of his chin. The space around them is warm, even though the living space itself is more-or-less freezing. The wood stove in the teahouse will need restocking before bed, for sure. Naruto can tell by the pallor of Sasuke’s cheeks.</p><p>“Will you let me wash your hair?” Oh, <em>that’s</em> a weakness—Sasuke’s methods of reciprocity hit Naruto right in the <em>chest</em>, grabbing his solar plexus hard enough to pop it out of place and throw it against the closest flat surface with a wet <em>slap</em>. </p><p>“Um, <em>duh</em>.” Naruto meets his eyes with his best solemn face, schooling everything about his expression back into smoothness. “Can I kiss you <em>now?</em>” </p><p>Sasuke laughs and tilts his head just a little bit further—and then Naruto can taste the laugh on his lips, his teeth, his tongue. It’s dry in their apartment and their lips are chapped beyond belief, especially with the way that Naruto’s always chewing on his own, but the kiss is <em>perfect</em>. They’re always perfect in a different way, even if it wouldn’t be perfect with anyone else. It relaxes Naruto’s muscles, drops the tension from his shoulders like too-heavy coat, weakens his knees just enough to remind him why he’s even here in the first place.</p><p>Sasuke’s arm shifts from his shoulder, down his back, toward his front, and the knot at the front of Naruto’s hakama is undone, like <em>magic</em>. Sasuke’s dexterity is beyond reproach, like he doesn’t have to think about anything before his body just <em>moves</em>, entirely different than the way that Naruto’s does the <em>same thing</em>: clumsy, graceless, and with unrestrained enthusiasm. </p><p>“You know,” Naruto says, stupefied and delirious with a kiss like that, as usual, “you kiss pretty good for a dead guy.”</p><p>Sasuke’s palm is still wet with dishwater when he shoves it against Naruto’s face, smothering his laugh with skin.</p><p>(Summer, or what passed for it in the Land of Snow, had been brief, like a sigh, and punctuated by a village with numerous open doors, letting in lukewarm breezes and birdsong. The tea shop is no exception, its single door propped open wide with a wooden sign, the entry bell ringing softly in response to the summer wind’s gentle touches, its fingers leaving nothing behind as it moved through the shop itself. </p><p>An observer had sat near the entryway at a table bathed in sunlight, two birds perched comfortably on the table’s edge, preening their feathers against the warmth. The cushion underneath the watcher’s knees had been limited in decoration, but comfortable, at least as far as the birds themselves could tell. The summertime itself stretched further along the floorboards, traced the graining in the wood with smooth feet, and it listened.</p><p>The birds sung to the stranger of the coming autumn, lamented the way in which summer was only a held breath between a chilly spring and an almost freezing autumn. They told stories of where they’d been and who they’d seen. They’d spoken of the shadow behind the tea shop, sitting next to a cat that had been too shapely to be unfed, too lithe to be kept. The stranger nodded, letting the summer shift around his shoulders to pull at the edges of his well-worn cloak.</p><p>A ceramic cup of chilled oolong was placed on the table with no fanfare. Its temperature had been such that condensation was beading at the lip of the cup, catching the summer’s eye. </p><p>A mouth, split wide in a smile, sunlight peeking out from behind teeth. “<em>you know</em>,” Naruto had said, and the season listened, the shape of the floorboards becoming a memory on its palms, “<em>this is the most highly recommended tea we have at this time of year</em>.”</p><p>The man had looked up, the color of his hair set fire by the light coming in through the window at his back.</p><p>“<em>how much?</em>” A whisper. The birds noted that it had been a welcome change—or rather, it had been a return to something softer, for him. </p><p>“<em>on the house</em>.” The summer had felt unasked questions hit the table like torn paper, fluttering against its surface to collect dust. When the stranger-that-wasn’t pulled his hands out from underneath his cloak, one of the questions had caught on the pad of his thumb.</p><p>He’d held it there, pressed to the shape of the teacup, and said nothing.</p><p>It’d been answer enough.)</p><p>-</p><p>(“<em>holy shit!</em>” Newborn flora had barely been able to crawl from the thawing earth before the sun startled them with its enthusiasm, their fragile leaves curling against their stems with its energy. Flowers that had already had the sense to bloom had found their petals stuck to the steel plating of a samurai helmet, resting on a table in a tea shop, almost newly opened, in the grand scheme of things. “<em>holy </em>shit!”</p><p>The samurai had glanced around the tea shop with pale eyes, his hair tied in a tight tail at the base of his skull. A strip of cloth was tied around his forehead, unaffiliated with anyone that mattered. His affiliations now extended only as far as the helmet did.</p><p>As far as the spring had been concerned, it’d been three dead men in a tea shop, out of place, finding new ones.</p><p>“<em>thought you were supposed to be dead</em>,” the samurai said to the sun, the only indication of his nerves being the way he picked his mochi into piece, after piece, after piece.</p><p>“<em>could say the same about you</em>.” Sasuke had moved like vapor does, as though his feet never really needed to touch the ground in the first place. For the Land of Snow, the spring had found itself something kindred in the tea shop. </p><p>“<em>never had you pegged for a samurai</em>,” the sunlight agreed, catching the attention of flower petals with its motion. Outside the open door, new growth turned its face toward his hands. </p><p>The samurai had looked at them both. There’d been white-pink flower petals in his hair, a sign that he’d taken off his helmet to breathe sometime before he’d gotten there. A risk, with a recognizable face like his. “<em>i figured i was proficient in taijutsu.</em>” His eyes settled on Sasuke, and an eyebrow arched, a little imperiously. “<em>thought maybe i should take up swordsmanship.</em>” </p><p>Sasuke held his gaze only barely. There’d been something heavy on his mind, like a cloud filled with rain. </p><p>A breeze pulled itself into the tea shop, catching the sunshine’s question in its path, said softly, almost secretly, to the empty eyes of the samurai helmet, “<em>are you happier?</em>”</p><p>The samurai had blinked, and in his eyes the sunlight glittered. In the space between these two moments, Sasuke’s eyes had dropped to the floor. </p><p>“<em>yeah</em>,” the samurai replied, nodding once. “<em>i think so</em>.” His eyes had been clear when he’d continued, “<em>how about you?</em>”</p><p>When the sun grinned, he became so young, much younger than he was only a heartbeat before. Even with the time that had passed, the spring remembered the boyishness with perfect clarity. Perhaps the samurai did too.</p><p>“<em>i don’t think i’ve been happier</em>,” he’d said. The flowers had known he’d been telling the truth.</p><p>When next the spring breathed in, Sasuke was nowhere to be seen.)</p><p>Sasuke startles awake, as usual.</p><p>The dream that shoves him upright is always vague, but consistent. The shapes and sounds and sensations are forgettable—the <em>feelings</em>, of course, stick in his throat, hooked into the skin of his tonsils. They burn a path up from his chest to gather behind his teeth, tasting a little bit like bile when they flood onto the flat of his tongue.</p><p>Even with as thick as they are, the feelings are hard to distinguish, but Sasuke knows them anyway, just like he knows the shadows that linger at the edge of his periphery, even if his periphery has, <em>obviously,</em> been better. When he works his jaw around them, they bend into familiar shapes: <em>i hate you so fucking much, i’ll kill you</em>; <em>i love you so much i can’t stand it</em>; <em>i love you so much i don’t know what to do with myself</em>. </p><p>He runs a hand down his face, because it’s the middle of the night. His fingertips come away bloody because he’d been startled awake—as usual. The space beside him is empty, because Naruto had woken up first. It’s a routine, almost down to the <em>timestamp</em>, the way this plays out; Naruto’s inability to sleep these days paired with Sasuke’s inherent neuroticism make for an interesting combination after dark, no matter how many bruises Naruto bites into Sasuke’s collarbone, or how tight Sasuke clings onto Naruto’s shoulders when he holds him like <em>that</em>.</p><p>No—that’s not a fair way to spin it. It’s getting better, the pattern of things. There are nights where Sasuke startles awake to see Naruto looking at him with that doofy, worried look on his face. Or there are nights where Sasuke wakes up first and gets to hold Naruto’s face or drag his knuckle along his cheek. Occasionally, there are even mornings where they wake up at practically the same time (rare) and Naruto kisses Sasuke’s nose (<em>far</em> less rare) and then shows off the dimples in his cheeks near his scars.  </p><p>Sasuke slides his legs out from under the comforter and brings himself to standing. The floorboards are fucking <em>freezing</em>, but not as cold as they could be. Naruto must’ve thrown more wood into the stove downstairs, with the way the air doesn’t bite at Sasuke’s cheeks as he makes his way to the bathroom.</p><p>He grabs Naruto’s jacket off of the floor where it always ends up and shrugs it on anyway, before he flicks on the bathroom light and squints against its brightness. The bathroom itself is a half-blurry mixture of surfaces and metallic finish, a combination of failing-and-standard sight. </p><p>The mirror tells him what he pretty much already knew: his left eye is weeping blood, a classic response to a classic behavior. It means he’d tried to open the Sharingan in his sleep, for whatever reason, and this eye hadn’t been doing well <em>before</em> he’d switched them out. It’s hardly surprising that it struggles to function like this.</p><p>He splashes cold water on his face, paying special attention to his left eye and the cheek underneath it, clearing out the blood that’s starting to dry in his eyelashes. It’s quick work, the rhythm of all this, and any sleep that had been tying down Sasuke’s joints has slipped to the bathroom floor, left behind when he turns off the light to go find Naruto. It’s the middle of winter in the Land of Snow, so it’s no real guess as to where he’ll be standing—he says that it’ll probably never get old, watching snowfall in the almost-pitch darkness, broken only by streetlights and the glimpse of wood-burning stoves through windows.</p><p>Sasuke can smell incense as he cuts through the shoebox of their living room, passing by what passes for a shrine in a living space this size. Naruto’s mother looks like she’s smiling <em>at</em> him, which is uncomfortable. He doesn’t look at his own parents’ photo, framed off to the right; this is more Naruto’s area of expertise and, again, it’s <em>uncomfortable</em>.</p><p>His footsteps are silent against the stairs, a reminder about how difficult the death of old habits has been, can be, <em>will be</em>. They don’t creak when he hops the last two, and the tea shop only settles comfortably around him as he walks across the dining room on bare feet. It’s warmer down here, closer to the stove, regardless of the fact that heat rises, or whatever. The stove in the corner crackles softly—definitely refilled, certainly by Naruto.</p><p>Sasuke pulls on his boots, left very particularly by the front door, and lets the entry bell announce his exit.</p><p>The winter numbs his face almost instantly.</p><p>(That second winter had been unsurprising in its ferocity, though the building underneath the snowfall had groaned, a little, with the weight of it—the snow, the ice, and the snow again. The snow had just been relarning what it was like to have interlopers in this space outside its influence, and the murmur-rattle-chime of it all had been disorienting, had been <em>disruptive</em>. </p><p>But some of the winter—some of the snow—had been tucked under the awning of the teashop-in-repair, not yet packed down by boots, or stones, or ice. It hadn’t yet melted and frozen and gathered again. It had only waited, pressed against the windows closest to the shadow of a cash register, fluttering in time with the almost-rusted ring when the register open-and-shut.</p><p>The sun’s personification breathed out a curse on a flame-curled tongue and was caught in a headlock by a flowered tree, her forearm tucked under his chin, her bicep pressed to the back-and-side of his throat. They’d been laughing, as far as the wintertime could tell. They’d been too far away to catch their laughter against the glass. </p><p>Sasuke had been watching them almost as closely as the snow had been.</p><p>“<em>he seems happy</em>.” The artist spoke like curling paper, dried stiff with ink. The winter air only caught the words through the window itself. The wood around it had swallowed the words whole, refusing to let them go. “<em>i wish i was surprised</em>.”</p><p>Sasuke had said nothing. Or if he had, it’d been too quiet for the snow to even catch the memory of.</p><p>The pause between them had been frozen, three inches thick. The snow outside hadn’t known what weight it carried, but it was something—and it existed outside the reach of the sunlight’s smile and the flowered tree’s laughter. The floorboards creaked beneath the ice they’d shared.</p><p>“<em>he’d’ve hated it</em>,” the artist had spoken again, sharper than the first time, the pull of a brush against old parchment. “<em>being hokage</em>.”</p><p>The ice shuddered. It cracked, from the bottom.</p><p>“<em>oh yeah?</em>” Sasuke had leaned against the back wall, his bones speaking to the snowfall through the tea shop’s frame. “<em>how do you figure?</em>”</p><p>A scoff, the flutter of bristles casting aside excess droplets. “<em>he’d only spend his time thinking about you. what you were doing, if you were hurt or not, if there was something he could’ve done.</em>” The artist pitched his voice up just a little, thinning it out with the edge of a knife. “‘<em>what good is a hokage if</em>—’”</p><p>“‘<em>—they can’t even save one friend.’ i’m aware.</em>”</p><p>The ice cracked a second time, from the top. Whatever was pressing against it had increased its force.</p><p>Sasuke had shifted against the wall. Maybe he’d swallowed. The outside hadn’t been able to tell. “<em>i can’t see why he likes you</em>.”</p><p>The artist laughed, pressing an ink-dark thumb against his bottom lip. The shape of it had been unclear against the cold-fogged window, but it’d been clear enough to imagine. “<em>just because he likes you doesn’t make you a good person.</em>”</p><p>“<em>case in point</em>.” It might’ve been a laugh, in another life. Even then, it’d been close.</p><p>“<em>case in point</em>,” the artist agreed.</p><p>There may have been more that would’ve been said in that moment. They could’ve said anything else in that space, with the length of ice between them. The artist may have been about to see if Sasuke knew what Naruto had given up to be out in the middle of nowhere. Sasuke may have asked the artist what he’d known about the time before this, long after Sasuke had decided to bury himself alive, out of the sun’s sight. </p><p>But instead, hair like flower petals had flashed before the window with sunlight to follow. The snow had been unable to feel anything but laughter, anything but shouting, anything but a <em>welcome home</em> said painfully. The tea shop’s frame had settled under the snow, had creaked at its joints, and had sighed out warmth against the cold. </p><p>Behind the cash register, the tea shop had been able to feel the shape of a box of tea leaves tucked away on a shelf. While the tea shop had lived many lives as different things, it had known this—they’d been tea leaves dried for artian’s ink. </p><p>They’d been wrapped in what could’ve been kindness in a different story.</p><p>In this one, it had likely been respect.) </p><p>The heartbeat that underlies moments like these guides the teacup from Naruto’s hand into Sasuke’s like clockwork, ticking in the marrow of their bones. The teacup cuts through the chill with absolute impunity, which means that Naruto can’t have been out here that long, and Sasuke presses it to both of his cheeks to soak it up. </p><p>“Smells like beef broth,” he says, and it feels like there’s steam coming out of his mouth with the teacup so close to his face. </p><p>“That’s because it is,” Naruto tells him, sipping on his own teacup, using his prosthetic as a coaster as Sasuke leans against the side of the tea shop next to him. The snow huffs against the soles of his boots. “I was hungry, and this seemed like it would be toasty <em>and</em> satisfy my insatiable hunger.”</p><p>Sasuke takes a drink that almost scalds his tongue, but he can feel it warming its way down his throat and into his stomach. “Not a bad idea.”</p><p>“Well,” Naruto’s breath is smoky in the cold, his body temperature running too high to smother most of the time, “last time I made tea, you were like ‘this is disgusting’, because I oversteeped it or something, and it was, again, quote, ‘literally unpalatable.’”</p><p>“It was,” Sasuke says, taking another sip, “but I didn’t say it like <em>that</em>.”</p><p>Naruto snickers, sending clouds of white around his nose and mouth and cheekbones, catching frosted glimmers in his eyelashes. He’s beautiful, <em>painfully</em> so, and Sasuke remembers that at least a million times a day. Naruto will wink at a customer and Sasuke’s heart will quiver in the most unsubtle way, and it will remind him. Over, and over, and over again, it’ll remind him: <em>god, i</em>— </p><p>He touches the shell of Sasuke’s ear, looping almost-too-long hair around his forefinger as he traces down Sasuke’s cheek. “Your hair’s getting long. Want me to cut it for you?” </p><p>The softness is Naruto’s features pulls Sasuke’s stomach out from his body, leaving only a windfall where it ought to have been, and if he hadn’t been propped up against the tea shop, he’d probably go weak at the knees right about now. He takes another drink of molten beef broth to dislodge the stone that has made its home on the back of Sasuke’s tongue, threatening to close off his windpipe. </p><p>Something overwhelming is crawling up, and up, and out of him: <em>god, i</em>— </p><p>“Yeah, actually.” He sounds exactly like he’s supposed to when he speaks, and for that he is <em>infinitely grateful</em>. “It’s been starting to drive me up a wall.”</p><p>Naruto lets go, laughing, and brings his teacup back to his mouth, dusting snow from the windowsill behind him as he adjusts his position against the tea shop’s facade. There’s still some tiredness at the edge of his mouth, a little bit of exhaustion painted beneath his eyes, but even then he’s able to look comfortable, out in the freezing cold without a jacket around his shoulders. </p><p>He’s always managed to look comfortable, even when his life had been under fire—maybe especially then. </p><p>Sasuke clears his throat against the stone that’s struggling to move. It’s been there all day. All day, all week, <em>a long time</em>. It’s a thought and a question and every time he looks at Naruto’s face, he thinks about it. If he keeps thinking about it, he’ll run. If he speaks about it, he’ll die.</p><p>When he clears his throat a second time, it sounds like a hammer pulling back on a pistol. </p><p>“You remember when I went to the store this week to get more milk?” Sasuke asks, pressing the teacup against the side of his throat for strength, for warmth.</p><p>“Sure do,” another laugh, this one more like a wheeze against the chill. “You were <em>pissed</em> about your stocking oversight, and were, like, going to swear yourself blue.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, that’s not the important part.” Maybe the broth idea had been better than tea. He can almost feel its liquid warmth in his toes. “You know that elderly lady that owns the place?” Sasuke breathes and his voice doesn’t tremble. “She wanted me to ask how my husband was doing, since you never get sent on shopping runs.”  </p><p>It’s kind of comical, really—or it would be, if Sasuke’s hindbrain wasn’t threatening to throw him out into the street at a dead sprint. But Naruto has spit his beef broth onto the snow, coughing, and Sasuke is rooted to the spot, unable to go anywhere. It’s a feeling so far from panicked that he doesn’t even have a <em>name</em> for it, because the only thing panic has ever done is make him run away. He’s never quite been startled into stillness before.</p><p>The beef broth hisses into instant freeze against the snow. It steams into the nighttime.</p><p>Naruto’s cheeks are pink when he says, “oh, well, who could blame her, right? We share a last name,” which had been Naruto’s idea (“<em>u-zu-ma-ki, u-chi-ha, so u-zu-ha. perfect, right?”</em>), “we live together, I call you gorgeous all the time. Honestly, who <em>wouldn’t</em> make that assumption? I mean, you know, besides the fact that I think people still try to give you their number—”</p><p>If he doesn’t stop him, he’ll never stop talking. It’s his nervous habit, far off on the other end of the spectrum from Sasuke, who will literally shut his mouth for the rest of time, if given the chance. Naruto never gives him the chance; so Sasuke returns the favor, and tries to keep Naruto from talking himself to <em>death</em>.</p><p>Sasuke coughs up the stone in his throat and lets it hit the snow like deadweight.</p><p>“So,” he says, his breath competing with the beef broth currently <em>still</em> scalding his palms, “do you wanna get married?” </p><p>This time, Naruto has nothing in his mouth to spit-take into the snow. It’s only silence, and the way Naruto is looking at him, and the screaming of his own abject stupidity in his ears. There’s a siren pressing against his eardrums, and he really, honestly, might just drop dead here. Naruto’s blinking, and his eyes are shining, and his jaw has gone slack with a complete <em>lack</em> of brain activity. He’s still breathtaking, even with an expression that could be described as <em>almost</em> vacant, if his eyes weren’t sharp enough to cut glass. </p><p>“What?” The question lays itself atop Sasuke’s own, a snowball dropped from a low height. It barely even whispers when it hits the ground. <em>god</em>, Sasuke thinks, an echo of an echo of a thought, <em>naruto, i</em>—</p><p>“Do you want to get married?” Snow has started falling, casting shadows in the street lighting, and they look almost like teardrops on Naruto’s face.</p><p>The closest municipality is two hours away by truck, which Sasuke knows better than he knows the standard time to steep jasmine tea, at this point. He’s checked with town visitors, checked maps, checked online. It’s a two-hour drive and the paperwork is relatively simple. They would need their fake IDs, tucked away in a locked drawer upstairs. The municipal clerk could witness, especially if they didn’t ask any questions, like <em>why are you sharing a name already?</em> </p><p>Sasuke’s thoughts run circles around themselves and begin to grow teeth, drawing blood when they get too close to one another.</p><p>“Sasuke,” Naruto says his name like a holy thing, and it’s so unbelievably <em>romantic</em> that the only possible option is that he’s going to say <em>no</em>. He’s going to say, he’s going to <em>say</em>— “I love you so fucking much.”</p><p>There’s a period after that sentence. It’s <em>i love you so fucking much</em>, not <em>i love you so fucking much that</em> or <em>i love you so fucking much and</em>. It is only itself, a statement of fact. </p><p><em>god, i love you,</em> says his own voice in his own head, a record set free from its place on a dusty shelf for special occasions, <em>i love you so much</em>, <em>so much, so much</em>. He’s either going to vomit, or—</p><p>“Holy shit, are you okay?” Naruto’s hands are on his face and his prosthetic is warmer than he expected, but then again, it was recently still being utilized as a coaster for the hottest beef broth on earth. “Are you <em>okay</em>?”</p><p>Or he’s going to cry.</p><p>Sasuke drops his teacup and hears it break against the frozen ground as he presses his hand over his eyes. “It’s just really fucking dry.” That’s the worst lie. That is the worst, most obvious, most feeble lie he’s ever told in his entire life, and that is including the whole thing about <em>whims</em> and <em>severing bonds</em> and whatever other shit he’s said in moments where his heart was being smothered with both his hands. “It’s dry and it’s fucking cold.”</p><p>Naruto’s hands are disgustingly gentle when he pulls Sasuke’s fingers away from his eyes. There’s no blood on his palms. “Are you okay? You’re acting like the love of your life just asked you to <em>get married</em>.” There’s those dimples, tucked in his cheeks. Sasuke could kiss them, if his nose wasn’t running. Gross.</p><p>“Maybe I’m acting like the love of my life didn’t give me a response?” It’s either let his nose run, or sniffle. He’s not really sure that he wants to do either.</p><p>“Oh, fuck,” and <em>there</em> it is. Naruto’s cheeks go <em>scarlet</em>, and then it’s all the way down his neck. “I mean, <em>duh</em>, I’ll marry you. I’ll marry you <em>now</em>, if you want. I—of course we can’t invite anyone, or anything, but I think that—what, you thought I wouldn’t marry you? We’re basically—I mean, I just said we’re practically married.”</p><p>“You think I’m just going to <em>assume</em> what your answer is?” He has to sniffle, and he does. It doesn’t fix the problem, but it makes it a little less notable. “Like just forego the whole process?”</p><p>“I just—” That complicated look that Naruto will wear sometimes comes and goes in a flash, the flicker of a lightbulb that might be on its last legs. It’s the look he gets when Sasuke asks if he’s feeling okay, like he’d just decked him right across the face. “I thought you were going to do that thing where you say, ‘oh, i have robbed you of your youth by dragging you out into the middle of fucking nowhere and forcing you to live with me in this domestic nightmare.’”</p><p>Sasuke scoffs. “It’s never sounded like that.”</p><p>Naruto’s eyebrows rise. “It started sounding like that the sixth time we fought about it.”</p><p>(“<em>i said that when we die, we’d be able to understand each other</em>,” the seasons remembered, the words thrown out wide, shaking limbs free of snow, and flowers, and leaves, “<em>so let me fucking understand you!</em>”)</p><p>Naruto holds Sasuke’s face again, drawing his thumbs underneath Sasuke’s eyes. Both of his thumbs are cold. “Let’s get married.” </p><p>Sasuke tilts his head to press a quick kiss to Naruto’s flesh and blood palm. “I love you,” he says there, and it makes his ears feel too warm.</p><p>“I love you back,” Naruto tells him, and he doesn’t make mention of Sasuke wearing his jacket when he warms his living hand against Sasuke’s throat, pressing his little finger against the backmost line of his pulse, “Uzuha-san.”</p><p>It’s normal, then, when Sasuke rolls his eyes, huffing out a breath of not-quite-warm air through his nose. He opens his mouth to speak, to offer to go inside, to suggest that maybe he go in to get gloves to clean up the broken teacup, but Naruto stops him, casting a glance toward the second floor of the tea shop, right where their living room should be.</p><p>“Oh,” Naruto says, and there’s an epiphany happening there. “We have to tell our parents.”</p><p>“What?” Sasuke dips his hand against Naruto’s hip for warmth. “No. You talked to them already. I smelled incense. It can wait until tomorrow.”</p><p>“We have to tell them <em>now</em>. Can you imagine? I mean, I can’t, but like, I’m pretty sure my folks would wreck my whole week if I didn’t tell them.” Naruto’s smile is small, and earnest, and beautiful. Another one of those reminders. “Your parents might flip! We have to tell them.”</p><p>Those stupid, shining eyes. Those stupid dimples. The unfathomable length of his eyelashes. </p><p>“Okay,” Sasuke lets it go, because there’s something sleepy pulling at his body. <em>Authentic</em> tiredness, maybe. He’s so unfamiliar with it that it’s hard to identify. “But after I get the teacup. I’m not leaving shards of ceramic everywhere.”</p><p>Naruto’s laugh scatters across the empty street, hitting the silence with the force of a rock through a window. Sasuke’s heart skips. His heart skips, and his arm moves out, and he pulls Naruto forward, just a little. Sasuke’s limited height difference doesn’t mean much when they’re this close, but it never really does when it comes to Naruto’s gravitational pull determines most things anyway.</p><p>They kiss, and it’s freezing.</p><p>Naruto laces their fingers together.</p><p>Sasuke can taste laughter when he opens his mouth.</p><p>(It hadn’t been the first autumn that had been aware of itself, but it had been significant nonetheless.</p><p>The trees at the topmost edge of the Valley of the End would’ve been an array of burnt colors, if they hadn’t been pulled into the chasm with the ruined statues. There had been stones upon stones stacked against one another, brought low by a cataclysmic force. The air had been electric with discharged chakra, loose leaves scattered by the updraft from the waterfall. </p><p>Water beaded on faces, on bodies, on clothes, all obscured by fallen rock. </p><p>“<em>hey</em>,” the autumn heard a whisper, carried on the waterfall’s mist up and over the lip of the Valley, “<em>i know you can’t go back there</em>.” It’d been akin to the sound of sand against concrete, a familiar murmur of the Land of Wind—but it’d been different: exhausted but jubilant, like it had been trying to be louder than it was currently able to be.</p><p>The waterfall whispered a response that had been indistinct. The leaves hadn’t been able to catch it either.</p><p>“<em>how about we leave?</em>” The same sand-and-concrete voice. The autumn had known this voice in a different shape, had felt it reverberate through this Valley before, could recognize it, maybe, if the waterfall hadn’t been so loud. </p><p>“<em>what, just… go?</em>” That time, the whispered response had been clearer, had been clinging to the stem of a leaf that fell to the jagged edge where a statue had once been. “<em>with all that… shit you still have to do?</em>”</p><p>The waterfall had thundered on, so long that the autumn wondered if the conversation had kept going, out of its influence, out of its sight. But then the waterfall lifted up the sound again, the mist passing it amongst itself until the autumn could pull it from the moisture there: “<em>for all anyone knows, we’re dead</em>,” said the sand. “<em>if we just go, who’s to say we survived in the first place?</em>”</p><p>It might’ve been a wheeze the autumn heard, but it hadn’t been sure. It listened anyway.</p><p>“<em>where would we go?</em>” The electric pop before a storm. That’s what that voice had been. Static, crawling up the surface of the waterfall, dissipating against the earth above.</p><p>“<em>wherever you want</em>.” The rustle of clothes, lost to the roar of the Valley. The groan of battered bodies, swallowed by the stones, the uprooted trees, the season itself. “<em>as far away as you want.</em>” Softer, even, than the first time the voice had spoken. If the autumn hadn’t made itself brittle at the top of the Valley’s mouth, the voice would’ve been lost entirely. It was as if the words had been spoken against another’s mouth.</p><p>“<em>it’s probably really late to say this</em>,” the static spoke, dying before it reached the Valley’s edge. The stone had hummed with its timbre instead, “<em>but i’m pretty sure i’m in love with you</em>.”</p><p>Rocks had shifted against one another, screaming out a sound that lasted eons, maybe. The autumn hadn’t been sure how to measure time so incrementally. It had never needed to, before. </p><p>By the time stones had settled, only the waterfall’s voice remained.)</p>
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